On God, relationships, and unconditional love

In this society of fast relationships and mistrust, one thing that we’re all hopelessly searching for is unconditional love. However, the way I’ve seen this play out is sometimes irrational. For example, in my relationships this has played out as a way for the person you’re dating to excuse their flaws. We’ve all heard of people saying or said so ourselves that we can’t love someone who doesn’t accept us for who we are. But what happens if you have a tragic flaw such as addiction? Should you still expect your love interest to love you unconditionally? It’s selfish but we usually always expect people to love us unconditionally. But doesn’t the person who wants better for you actually love you more than the person who is alright with your tragic flaws.

Take God for example (if you believe in a higher power), God loves us all unconditionally but he expects us to strive to be more like him. We were all created in his likeness and he expects us to please him by following his word (The Bible). Most of us accept and understand this so when we sin, we repent, and aim to do better. Why? Because there’s this thing called hell that we fear but most importantly because we know that our relationship with God will improve when we stop engaging in things that God does not approve of. So in that case why is it difficult for us to accept constructive criticism from our significant others on why we can improve as individuals and as their partner.

Some people say that if you put God first in a relationship, there’ll be less conflict. I tend to agree because if you’re both striving to be better for God then you’ll be even better for each other. I recognize that this applies more to heavy issues like addiction, laziness, and gluttony which are sins and applies less to issues like your partner chewing loudly. However, those lesser issues are things that we can tolerate and live with. So my advice would be to keep God first in your relationship and the rest will take care of itself.

I would like to put a disclaimer that even if someones claims to be putting God first, you should judge them by their actions and not by their words. For example, if you’re dating someone with drinking issues and he claims to put God first yet he still drinks to a stupor, then it might be time to call it quits and find someone who is truly committed to improving himself. For my non-religious people, you can take religion out of this and still stick to the principle of striving for greatness for both you and your significant other.

As you may know from one of my first posts, drinking irresponsibly is one of my turn offs. Feel free to share your turn-offs below.